Seijuurou hates noise so this shouldn't really come as a surprise
by Happy Snow
Summary: But it scares Ryouta sometimes how Seijuurou-chi can be so composed most of the time and then the next moment, he's replaced by someone seemingly completely different. It scares Ryouta even more that he can no longer check on Seijuurou-chi.


_Disclaimer (that everyone already knows): I don't own Kuroko no Basket_

 _Note: this is for the Kiaka week under the prompt Cuddling. Sorry that this is so late. Also, this is set in a medieval AU where Akashi is a sorcerer/wizard/whatever-else-you-want-to-call-it which I haven't even posted yet so I suppose this is sort of a prelude to that. They are really young in most of the fic so this isn't really shippy (yet, I guess). For the context, I suppose I should add that Kise and Akashi are childhood friends hence the use of first-name and all. I also apologise because this wasn't done really well since I rushed it and oh my god, the title and the summary don't even match, I am so sorry but... I hope you enjoy it!_

"No, no, that wouldn't work, Ryouta," Seijuurou says with a sigh as he plucks the piece of coloured paper from Ryouta's hand and adjusted it so that it is folded exactly into half. His fingers nearly slip as he vaguely registered the flash lightning. Hurriedly, he perfects the folding and passes the paper back to Ryouta as he prepared himself for the noise that was sure to follow. Thunder boomed. "You have to do it precisely like this, or it will not turn out well," he explained.

Ryouta beamed at him, "Who cares, Seijuurou-chi! It'll just be a crooked paper crane then. Then, during the presentation tomorrow I'll just tell the class tomorrow that they have to learn to appreciate not just the outside but also the inside!"

Seijuurou looked at him, clearly unimpressed, "It's a paper crane. It has no insides. All it says is you're not putting effort into your work," he pointed out. "As usual," he added quietly as an afterthought.

"Seijuurou-chi, I try my best!" Ryouta protests, pouting. He paused, as lightning flashes through the skies again. "It's because the teacher said I couldn't bring my wooden sword to the class. That's my talent! Not origami… How am I supposed to do a proper show-and-tell with a fake talent and do it well?" Ryouta whines.

Thunder boomed as Seijuurou ruffles his hair and Ryouta wasn't sure if he was imagining or if Seijuurou's hand had been trembling but when he withdraws it, his hands were perfectly stable so Ryouta figures he must have imagined it. "Origami is the easiest after all. You don't want to learn shogi or chess or the violin and you can't do those overnight either. Origami can be fun too, you'll learn to like it," Seijuurou promises.

"Seijuurou-chi," Ryouta whines again. "This is booooring, it'll only be cool if like, the paper cranes that I fold can fly or something." At this, Ryouta blinks up at Seijuurou. "You could do that can't you," he whispers. "Make it fly!" His eyes twinkled just as lightning flashes through the window again. It made his already bright eyes seem so much brighter (enhancing the whole puppy-dog eyes effect that really doesn't need anymore enhancing) and Seijuurou almost misses the thunder that comes after. His fingers shook a little.

"Well, not in the classroom but I suppose I could enchant it here," he eventually concedes. "Only if Ryouta does it properly," he added sternly. Ryouta grinned happily and nodded enthusiastically, deliberately folding the next step with exaggerated extra care as Seijuurou rolls his eyes. "When I was saying origami is fun though… I actually meant that to tell you that once we are done with cranes, we could try paper ninja stars." Lightning flashed outside again and somehow, this time it seemed brighter. I figured you'd like that, he added in his head, unsure if he could project the thought without his voice shaking.

Ryouta, the drama queen (or king) had (very dramatically) widened his eyes to the point it was almost comical and released the half-folded coloured paper from his hands as he tackled Seijuurou into a hug. "NINJA STARS!" He squealed excitedly (and loudly), successfully drowning out the sound of the thunder somehow. "Why didn't you say so earlier?! I'll make this crane perfect really quick! Hurry, Seijuurou-chi, fold one and let me copy it. Hurry, hurry!" he cried as he retreated under the table to retrieve his incomplete paper crane and looks expectantly at Seijuurou.

Seijuurou lowers his head, effectively hiding his smile as he returned his focus to folding the crane, as he continues to provide a step-by-step instruction for Ryouta. Ryouta's eyes seemed almost sharp and calculating now as he folded the instruction almost impossibly quickly. Seijuurou tilts his head a little, studying Ryouta. Ryouta's concentration level was almost scary when he puts his heart into it, and it's a pity that he rarely puts his heart into anything. Just as he was about to finish, folding the one end of the crane to make it the head, a loud clap of thunder echoed through the room at the same time as lightning flashed and Seijuurou flinches, dropping the paper as he instinctively tried to curl up.

It was merely a span of about a second before Seijuurou was bending over, picking up the paper from floor as he tries to stop the trembling but when he sits up, he finds Ryouta staring at him oddly. "Its n-nothing," Seijuurou muttered, "The crane merely slipped from my fingers," he insisted. "Sh-shall we move on to the ninja stars since we are done with this, or would you like me to make them fly first?" he asks, forcing his voice to remain as stable as possible.

Ryouta blinks, not responding for a while before he stretches out his arms expectantly. "Seijuurou-chi," he whispers, "I'm scared. Can you hug me a bit?" he asks hopefully, wiggling his fingers childishly. Seijuurou freezes, and it was almost comical with his fingers still delicately pressing onto the end of the crane to fold it into the head. As Ryouta was considering just wrapping Seijuurou in his arms regardless of what Seijuurou was going to say about it, a flash of light was seen and barely a millisecond later, thunder was howling and before he knew it, Seijuurou had wrapped his smaller arms around Ryouta.

"Let's go to your bed, ne?" Ryouta asks quietly, as he lifts the smaller boy off the ground, carrying him out of the study room and into his bedroom. "We'll finish folding them tomorrow morning and then you can animate them, okay?" He asks Seijuurou but before Seijuurou could even respond, thunder was heard, coming together with lightning again this time and he felt Seijuurou's hand tighten around his neck. Assuming a yes for his question, he went on to gush about how cool it would be when the cranes they made fly and it be so much better if they could prank someone with it. He wondered, out loud, if they could peck people and before they knew it, he was babbling about the ten thousands of possibilities of what they could do with a flying paper crane, successfully distracting Seijuurou from most of the noises as he ran a comforting hand down Seijuurou's back, repeatedly.

Rain was not common in this area and most of the time, they do not experience it. Sometimes, Ryouta thought that was a pity because how fun would it be to be able to get all wet but perhaps it was a good thing that rain was uncommon. For once he hopes that it stays that way.

…

Ryouta sat up, stretching tiredly as he wondered what in the world woke him up. Rubbing his tummy, he frowned. No, he wasn't hungry. Or thirsty. He didn't need to toilet. Nor did he didn't feel particularly ill in any way. Flopping back onto his bed, he was about to go back to sleep when he spotted the culprit. Or heard it. Sitting up in alarm, Ryouta hurriedly changed out of his pyjamas. In tiptoes, he had sneaked down the stairs, careful not to wake his family up. He had sneaked a note into his pillow stating that he was over at Seijuurou-chi's to play. It was common enough for him to leave before most of his family members, thankfully, so this would not be seen as suspicious. Except for the fact that it was one in the morning, he supposed.

Well, he thought, this wasn't too bad. After all, he got to run through the rain and he had really always one to do that. The fun was diminished a little by his conscious and more mature side worrying about Seijuurou-chi but he was mostly enjoying the feeling of getting soaked thoroughly by the rain. It was like having a really big showering area, except he vaguely recalled Seijuurou's nagging about how rainwater was not clean. Well… who really cared.

Reaching the gate to Seijuurou's house, he ran up to the guards. "Hello!" He called enthusiastically to the guard nearest to the gate. "Could I come in," he asked. "I need to take something from Seijuurou-chi and…"

"Identification." The guard interrupted, before Ryouta could finish fabricating his story. Ah, he knew he forgot something. He had forgotten to bring his identification. This stupidly suspicious guards never let him in when he doesn't have them unless Seijuurou-chi came down himself to get him. But Seijuurou wouldn't come down in the middle of the rain and even if he would, Ryouta wouldn't let him. Well, he supposed he didn't really have any other choice.

"Ah, I will go back and get it." He told the guard sheepishly. "Just give me a while." He said, flashing a charming smile at the guard as he retreated. Once he was out of sight, he ran into the the tall blades of grass that nobody ever trimmed. Seijuurou's mother, Akashi-san, was fond of walking between the tall grass for some reason of other and there was this section of the gate that was covered with the grass both within the gate and outside of the gate. Thank goodness he had been wearing dark clothes today. If he was fast enough, nobody even needed to know he got in.

Sneaking to the building was the easy part though, within the building, there was almost always some servant around. The trick, he had learnt early on, was not avoiding the servant but finding the servant that would let him in. Within the first year of knowing Seijuurou, Ryouta had already memorised the names and faces to the servants hired by Akashi-san who were always more lenient.

Ryouta peeked into through the window as he waited for the appearance of the right people. He waited, and waited, and waited, until he realised that there wasn't a single servant that has passed yet even though usually three servants would have passed by now. That wasn't right. Seijuurou's house was never empty. There are always people going around and it was hard to even sneak Seijuurou around even though he belonged in the house. If they were caught on their way to the stables in the backyard, the servants would usher them back telling them that they must have gotten lost. You can't go there without permission apparently. Ryouta never liked those servants but now that he hasn't even seen one of them, it was starting to get a little creepy.

What would they be doing at one in the morning that stopped them from going around the… oh! "Stupid," Ryouta muttered as he pushed the window up a little and rolled inside. Sleeping, of course they were sleeping. How had he not figured that out, he thought as he quickly sneaked up to Seijuurou-chi's room, as quietly as he could. It has already been really long since the thunderstorm started and Ryouta wasn't sure how much has changed since the first occurrence nine months ago. Sure, Seijuurou had been eight then and now he was nine but really, it wasn't even a double digit yet and Ryouta was already proudly ten.

Ryouta knew that Seijuurou was frightened of the thunderstorm but when he threw open the door to reveal himself, he hadn't expect the Seijuurou to bolt up quite that fast or to see that expression of terror that if on anyone else's face would have likely been accompanied with screams. Ryouta watched as Seijuurou's features relaxed for a moment, before he frowned but before he he could say anything, Ryouta ran forward to embrace Seijuurou.

Only to be pushed back by Seijuurou's hand. Ryouta looks down, a pout forming on his lips as he prepares his whiniest voice when Seijuurou spoke up. "Ryouta's wet. And filthy. You'll get sick at this rate." He crawled off his bed as he pushed Ryouta towards the bathroom in his bedroom. "Go take a bath. I'll prepare the clothes." If Ryouta hadn't known any better, he would have said the Seijuurou-chi was being cold but Ryouta could practically hear the exasperated fondness oozing from Seijuurou-chi's tone and Ryouta beamed in response, obediently entering the bathroom.

Really, Seijuurou should suggest to his father to upgrade technology to have warm water at all times and not just in the afternoon because Ryouta had to discover the hard way that cold water bath after a run in the rain was awfully uncomfortable. But he figured it was worth it in the end because he still got to cuddle Seijuurou-chi and Seijuurou-chi seemed to shake a little less this time. Perhaps Seijuurou-chi would be able to run with him in the rain when he hit double-digit after all.

…

Seijuurou-chi was still scared of the storm when he was twelve, Ryouta recalled as he sat on the roof of his house, staring up at the clouds looming over him, covering the moon. Perhaps Seijuurou-chi really liked the stars and the moon. Maybe they made him feel safer. He wondered where Seijuurou-chi could possibly be? Could he see the stars and the moon from where he was right now? Was there a thunderstorm there? It has been four years since Seijuurou-chi is twelve. Was Seijuurou-chi still scared of the thunderstorm? Is someone there to pet Seijuurou-chi to sleep there? Was Seijuurou-chi near enough that maybe if he followed his intuition and ran fast enough, he would find Seijuurou-chi? Ryouta didn't know the answer to any of this questions. He hadn't known for four years. Ryouta missed Seijuurou-chi.

…

About 10 miles (16km) away, Seijuurou wrapped himself under the thin cloth, his head covered by it as he trembled. It was freezing cold and he could feel the water begin to seep into the cloth. He knew he should get up, move on, find a proper shelter, preferably further from here where people were after his life but he found himself unable to move, shaking under a tiny little cave in the middle of wherever. Who was wet and filthy now, huh? He thought miserably as he pulled the blanket closer around him when he heard yet another thunder. He missed Mother. He missed Ryouta, he thought as he bit his bottom lip to silence a scream.


End file.
